Despite the hundreds of variations currently on the market, the basic desk/chair furniture configuration used in office and industrial applications really has not changed all that much since the days of quill pens and sealing wax. This is true despite the fact that for at least thirty years, study after study has documented workers' dissatisfaction with their work environment. Many forms of physical discomfort caused by bad ergonomics, and the inability of the individual to control air conditioning, lighting, or other environmental conditions in his/her immediate vicinity have all conspired to undermine employee morale and decrease productivity.
In large part, worker dissatisfaction is caused by, or is related to, the office furniture they use. Almost every office furniture "system" is an amalgam of unsatisfactory compromises between pieces of equipment that were rarely designed with each other in mind, and virtually never with respect to the way the worker must interact with them as a collective whole.
The widespread incidence of work related repetitive stress injury as well as other musculoskeletal disorders, and the huge jury awards employees have won because of them, are unfortunate results of the dearth of truly integrated, ergonomically designed, office furniture products.
Worker complaints generally fall into seven categories, namely:
1) uncomfortable and unhealthy seating, resulting in fatigue and pain in the back, wrists, elbows, shoulders and neck, as well as limbs falling asleep due to constricted blood circulation; PA1 2) inadequate HVAC system (e.g., too hot, too cold, too drafty, poor air quality); PA1 3) poor lighting (e.g., too dark, too bright, glare, shadows, poor color quality); PA1 4) poor acoustics and noise pollution; PA1 5) obstructed and monotonous sight lines; PA1 6) inconvenient and inadequate storage; PA1 7) lack of control over any of the above.
Of course, some of these problems plaguing the modern office environment have traditionally been considered outside the ambit of furniture design, such as bad ambient lighting or poor air circulation.
But holistic furniture design that truly harmonizes seating, work surfaces, electronic and other equipment, lighting, and air delivery into a unified package can virtually eliminate all these bad conditions. A properly designed furniture system, one that really is a system, can even rescue some of the office buildings that may otherwise be considered obsolete because of the pressures placed on them by increasing heat loads and office population densities.
As appears further herein, the present invention is directed to an improved work station intended to economically, efficiently, and otherwise beneficially address the changing needs of the modern work environment, including the ever increasing use of electronic equipment and the move to the so-called "paperless office." By way of example and not of limitation, the present invention may also be used beneficially in industrial and control room applications, as well as in recreational settings where video, virtual reality, and other hitech entertainments are offered.
Before furnishing a more specific statement of the present invention's objects and a detailed description of its preferred embodiments, it is believed helpful to provide, for purposes of context, an overview of the prior art.
Office furniture designs over the past several decades have been largely derivative. This is why over the years there were no advances in the field paralleling those in office electronic equipment technology, which of course includes the ubiquitous computer.
Up until the middle of the 20th century people worked in so-called "bank" or "bullpen" type offices wherein people sat at desks having no partition between them. Only supervisors and managers were entitled to separate work spaces, which were created using 66 inch high panels of wood and glass.
During the early 1960's burolandschaft, or "office landscape," furniture was developed in Germany. Curved acoustical panels, usually 60 inches high, were used to separate individual desks from one another. The concept behind landscape furniture was that by giving workers some privacy, and by creating the illusion that shared common space, (viz., aisle ways), was an extension of their own individual work areas, it would be possible to office more employees in less space.
Shortly thereafter American designers began joining the panels of landscape furniture together, and suspending work surfaces, storage cabinets, and task lighting from them. This was the first "systems furniture." The most common panel heights were 60", 66", and 80" so that each worker was enclosed in a little private work space.
Today, the typical "cubicle" comprises dozens of separate parts that must be assembled on site. In most instances the panels receive through either their base boards (from underfloor or floor level distribution) or upper portions (via "power poles" from the ceiling) power and other electrical connectors, which are routed through the panel interior.
Currently, many offices are being designed using an "open plan" layout. These are actually very much like the bullpen configurations of old. The main difference is that now systems furniture is used, and work surfaces and storage cabinets are suspended from electrified panels that are substantially lower than those used in the past. Proponents of open plan designs maintain that they foster communication and cooperation among workers.
The open plan approach is also popular because it serves another major goal of most businesses, namely, reducing the square footage of office space allocated per worker. The ongoing and dramatic increase in office population densities is driven by the high cost of floor space and the intense pressure on businesses to cut overhead.
But, it can cause major problems for the office environment. Office heat loads are rising as more people and an increasing amount of electronic office equipment are being packed into less and less space. Building air conditioning systems are frequently unable to cope satisfactorily with the cooling demands this creates, and indoor air quality suffers greatly. Attempts to force more and/or colder air through the overhead ducts or under the raised access floor create cold spots and drafts. It can also create noise and, of course, placing employees' work areas closer to one another results in other kinds of acoustic pollution as well.
Systems furniture does not address these problems. Although it was innovative in the 1960's and, because better solutions have not been available it is still widely used, systems furniture is both inflexible and expensive in today's office environment.
In fact, bringing additional electrical capacity to and through such products, and just moving cubicles themselves, have sparked their own industries because of all the difficulties involved. Meeting the logistical challenges represent significant costs because the current office furniture chum rate is at least 25% on average, (i.e., at least 25% of a given office will relocate/reconfigure annually), and in many cases is far higher.
Within the last couple of years, a number of major office furniture companies have introduced "mobile" furniture. Basically, these products comprise tables or desks on wheels from which storage bins can be removably suspended, or that have conventional drawers. The idea is to provide enhanced flexibility for the rapid relocations that take place in the dynamic office environment. Such products may also include adjustable computer monitor supports and/or keyboard platforms, and may provide an extension cord type connector for connecting to an external power source. These adjustable features are aimed at improving the ergonomic performance of the furniture by permitting the user to control the positioning of certain equipment.
Still other currently available products might be described as "offices in a cabinet". Such products may be mounted on casters. The cabinetry opens out into what is in effect a panel system wherein a work surface, shelves, and the like are attached to and suspended from the interior side of the cabinet walls. An electrical connector or connectors may be provided. The concept behind this type of product is to provide a compact, movable, and storable work unit. A limited number of adjustment options may also be offered by these products.
Various specialized desks, such as trading desks, that include supply air grills or similar air outlets have been on the market. Also, an accessory product intended for installation on an existing desk offers control over various conditions such as air flow. It has not been widely received.
There are innumerable office chair products on the market. Many of these are touted to be ergonomically advanced, and certainly design progress has been made over the past few years. Some chairs allow adjustments of many more aspects than others. The common failing of these stand alone chair products is that their manual adjustment controls, including pneumatic ones, are not very user friendly. For this reason, users find it difficult to make good adjustments, and they do not adjust their chairs often enough to maintain an ergonomically healthy seating environment.